


a lesson on flight

by amarowan



Category: The Aurora Cycle - Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, During Canon, M/M, now what if both of them were into it, remember when those two kissed?, the divergence is that they are gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:41:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26057383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amarowan/pseuds/amarowan
Summary: “About the kiss—” Kaliis starts, and his voice is quiet but it does not waver, (his father taught him that, at least, to be strong above all,) “I know it was just — a tactic, a means to which we achieved the ends, but…”He trails off, unsure, even, of where he is going with the sentence. But — did it mean anything? Did it remain in his thoughts, long after it happened? “Could it have — meant something more?”They’re still walking, towards the apartment that Finian’s cousin owns, their temporary base on this amalgamation of cities, and it does not escape Kaliis how Tyler’s steps falter, slow down, as the words leave his mouth. A half-laugh escapes Tyler, and he doesn’t seem to be aware it’s left him as he asks, “Kal, are you — are you asking if I’m gay?”ORin which the kiss on sempiternity isn't just a means to an end.
Relationships: Kaliis Gilwraeth/Tyler Jones
Comments: 5
Kudos: 30





	a lesson on flight

To say that Kaliis is embarrassed would be an understatement. 

Tyler Jones, his Alpha and commander and leader, stands to his left. He glances over — Kaliis is always aware of his surroundings, of every miniscule movement of any warm body around him, and he has nothing to thank but the blood inside of him that screams for war, nothing to thank but the Enemy Within that he battles with each day — and he says, “I didn’t know Syldrathi blushed with their ears.”

If anything, that makes Kaliis flush a deeper red, ears burning. “I am not blushing.” A lie, and he knows it.

“I mean, it kinda looks like you’re blushing.”

He scowls. “I am  _ not _ blushing.”

Tyler hums a small note of agreement. “Sure.” And yet, his eyes slide back to Kaliis’s own face, to his ears and the red colouring them that betrays him. “I sometimes have that effect on people, is all.”

“Is your request not to punch you still in effect, sir?” Kaliis is mostly joking, but he can’t ignore the way that his first instinct, when Tyler had reached up — and for an Alpha with a presence as imposing and powerful as his, Kaliis had almost been shocked at his height, at how Scarlett and even Cat, at their 6’0” and 5’10”, towered over him, at how he was 5’6” and yet felt so much taller, and Kaliis had been equally as shocked when Tyler had to almost pull him down so he could reach his face — and pressed his lips against Kaliis’s, was to jerk back and sock him across the face. Cannot escape his birthright. 

Kaliis — it has been several minutes since the kiss, and Kaliis cannot stop thinking about it. The Pull he feels for Auri — that is not something he can change, no more than he can change the gravity of a star on its planetary system. And yet. When Tyler reached up — he is so small, more than a foot shorter than Kaliis, and it is moments like that, when they are pressed together or standing side-by-side, when that fact flies to the forefront of his mind — and kissed him, it did not feel wrong. (Granted, it did not feel like how his mother had described her moments with his father, moments made infinitely more powerful by the Pull, but it was not unpleasant, either. Kaliis isn’t sure what that means for him.)

There’s quite a way for them to walk before they reach the love hotel where they stashed the bodies of the missing guards, and the walk is mostly done in silence. Kaliis feels as though he should bring up — bring up something, if even just to acknowledge Tyler’s prowess and ability to improvise, his skill as a leader, but his words fail him as his thoughts stray back to the insistent press of Tyler’s mouth against his, the way he tasted faintly of mint and strawberries.  _ “I sometimes have that effect on people,” _ echoes in his mind, a whisper of the teasing lilt to Tyler’s voice as they stood in the elevator, and Kaliis hopes desperately that he is not blushing again. 

It isn’t until after they’ve taken off the stolen armour that Tyler speaks again. “Lieutenant Gilwra—” And he stops himself, he hesitates, and Kaliis can’t help but be on his guard, because Tyler Jones is nothing if not decisive. 

Tyler tries again. “Kaliis.” His voice is still— guarded, hesitant; Kaliis can’t tell which. “I know… I know how important touch and intimacy is to the Syldrathi. As your leader, your Alpha, I did what I had to do to get us out safely, but — as your friend, I would never forgive myself if I did something that broke the trust our team has just began to build.”

“It was for the mission,” Kaliis says, and the words are not a lie, but there are other words that he leaves unsaid, resting on his tongue. (That the kiss was the most intimate he’s ever been with anyone. That he has not stopped thinking about it, and that the thoughts have not been negative. That despite how he cannot escape the magnitude of his feelings for Auri, no matter how hard he tried, he liked the kiss that he shared with Tyler more than he cares to admit.) “It was — shocking, to say the least. But it was not unwelcome. The bond we have built as a team can withstand something as simple as a kiss.”

Tyler visibly relaxes at those words, tension draining from his shoulder and his brows and the way his chin sets whenever he’s stressed. “And to think I was all worried you’d never forgive me.”

“How long does the order to not punch you last, sir?” Wit flashes quick and easy on Kaliis’s tongue, and it’s easier to slip into the familiar rhythm of banter than to confront the thoughts in his head. 

“At least wait until we make it back to the apartment,” Tyler shoots back, and his cheeks dimple when a small grin begins to spread across his face. (Kaliis, like many other people across the galaxy, is not as immune to Tyler’s infamous dimples as he’d like to be.) “Starting the fight in the middle of a city… bold, Kal, real bold.”

“One could say the same of you, Tyler Jones.”

The small smile from earlier blooms into a full grin, and he’s really, really attractive, there’s no denying it. “A kiss, bold? Kal, you haven’t seen  _ anything _ yet. Have you met my sister?”

Kaliis has, and he agrees — Scarlett Jones is a level of bold that Kaliis never wishes to reach. He can admire it, but he gets too flustered even considering the possibility of him doing anything to follow in her footsteps. But — the insistent press of Tyler’s lips against his, the firm grip of his hands, entangled in the front of his shirt, the way he has to bend down and Tyler press up onto the tips of his toes for them to lock eyes (and lips) — he can’t stop thinking about it. If ever there were a time to be bold, it would be now. 

“About the kiss—” Kaliis starts, and his voice is quiet but it does not waver, (his father taught him that, at least, to be strong above all,) “I know it was just — a tactic, a means to which we achieved the ends, but…” 

He trails off, unsure, even, of where he is going with the sentence. But — did it mean anything? Did it remain in his thoughts, long after it happened? “Could it have — meant something more?”

They’re still walking, towards the apartment that Finian’s cousin owns, their temporary base on this amalgamation of cities, and it does not escape Kaliis how Tyler’s steps falter, slow down, as the words leave his mouth. A half-laugh escapes Tyler, and he doesn’t seem to be aware it’s left him as he asks, “Kal, are you — are you asking if I’m gay?”

Kaliis feels the hot flush rise in his cheeks, in the tips of his ears. “I— well, you kissed me so readily, and I know Terrans are more open with their affections, but that still seems less commonplace, and it is not as common for—”

“Kal,” Tyler says, “Kaliis,” and oh, he loves how his name sounds in Tyler’s mouth, how his tongue — that stumbles over Syldrathi and its many vowels — can somehow grasp ‘Kaliis’ so readily. Kaliis shuts up, because he knows he’s rambling, and he prides himself in being able to keep a cool demeanour no matter the situation, but when it comes to this — when it comes to matters of the heart, so foreign from what he knows and breathes — he loses his carefully cultivated visage. “I’m not straight, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“So then—”

Tyler shrugs, but despite his nonchalant body language he can’t escape the way his cheeks betray him with their deep, deep dimples. “I mean, I won’t say I wasn’t at least curious about what kissing you would be like.”

“... Why?”

“For someone so reserved, you’re not that self-aware.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Kaliis is not immune to the charm of Tyler’s dimples, and he is reminded of this fact every time Tyler smiles. “Kal — you’re six foot eight, your cheekbones are sharp enough to count as weapons, you have  _ violet eyes _ , and you’ve got the greatest control over your body I’ve ever seen,” Tyler says, and Kaliis is struck, again, by his cool blue eyes, by the easy laughter he finds in them. “You’d be hard-pressed to find someone in this galaxy that wouldn’t see how attractive you are.”

There’s a moment of silence, as they continue to walk, before Tyler speaks again. “Could it — the kiss, could it have meant something more for you?” The unspoken implication —  _ can it matter when you feel the Pull, feel something for Auri that you’ve already told me I cannot and will not ever understand  _ — is not lost on Kaliis. The conversation they had earlier is still fresh in his mind. 

And yet — when Kaliis thinks about it, thinks about the Pull he feels for Auri, and the fantasies he’s entertained in his head, thinks about Tyler, and his eyes, bluer than the sparkling, rippling surface of a lake, and his dimples, and the endless strength and determination he has — he isn’t too sure of his answer. 

“The Pull,” Kaliis says, “is the most common way that Syldrathi find lovers, and partners.” Kaliis does not talk about himself, or his culture, or the people that he left behind when he joined the Aurora Academy all those months ago — he does not talk about these things, and when he does it is not often. That fact alone is more than enough to garner Tyler’s full, rapt attention. “But it is not the only way.

“There are a few Syldrathi who never feel the Pull, or lose their be’shmai to the Void. There are others who feel the Pull for their one, their be’shmai, but choose to love more than just that who the universe destined for them.” Kaliis’s parents were not anything out of the ordinary, but he has an uncle who has two lovers, neither of them his be’shmai, for the glyf on his forefinger held the teardrop that signified the loss of his lifelove. “They are not common, not when we were made to have a single person that is destined for us — but these situations can and do occur.” 

“And—?”

Kaliis takes a breath. He is not often nervous, but now he finds himself with anxiety thrumming through his veins. “And, there is a possibility that I could feel that way. Could feel love for more than just my be’shmai, for Auri — not the same, never the same, but something…. closer to what Terrans feel.” His eyes lock on Tyler’s. “Something less like gravity, and more like flying.”

Tyler stops walking, so suddenly that Kaliis breezes past before realizing and turning back to face him. “Flying, huh?” he muses, and for once his expression is unreadable. (Out of all the members of Squad 312, Tyler is often the easiest for Kaliis to read and understand. His emotions broadcast throughout whatever room he’s in, as loud and present as the rest of him, and he is not nearly as good at controlling his expressions as his sister.) 

He takes a step closer to Kaliis. “Gravity, I’ve got no clue how it works,” Tyler says, and he takes another step, closing the distance between them. “But flying?”

A grin spreads across his face, and Kaliis cannot tear his eyes from the sparkle in his blue eyes, the dimples in his cheeks. “Flying, I understand.”

This time, Tyler does not hesitate, or command Kaliis to not punch him. This time, Tyler still reaches up — because Kaliis is taller, and despite Tyler’s large presence he cannot escape his height — and takes Kaliis’s face in his hands, pulling him down until they’re face to face, eye to eye, lip to lip. This time, Kaliis allows himself to lose himself in it, in the insistent press of Tyler’s lips against his, in the way that he tastes like mint and strawberries, in the way that he kisses like he commands, steady and brave and a little unconventional. 

This time, Kaliis does not feel guilty for the way his heart warms at the intimacy, an intimacy he has yet to share with the one the stars destined for him. 

And in his heart, he knows that flying is nothing like the Pull of gravity, but what do the differences matter when he can experience both?

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i simply think that squad 312 can be a polycule, as a treat. yes i am a short tyler enthusiast yes i think that there are no heteros on squad 312 yes i havent stopped thinking about the brief, glossed over kiss that ty and kal had
> 
> kudos and comments make my day !


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